How Do You Explain Ben Carson's Success in Iowa?

There is before us now yet more evidence that, especially on the Republican side, giving pride of place to Iowa in our nominating process is a truly terrible idea since, especially on the Republican side, the Iowa caucuses are a ridiculous system weighted toward increasingly ridiculous people. The most recent Iowa Poll, the gold standard in such matters, bears this out to a frightening extent.

The headline is that Dr. Ben Carson has surged past Donald Trump among likely caucus-goers. But it is more than worth your while to scroll down a bit. You may have noticed that Dr. Ben, despite having a voice that could anesthetize small rodents, has ideas that fairly scream, "Bananas Crazy!" The Iowa Poll people decided to run some numbers on that very question. Here are the results.

I'm going to mention some things people have said about Ben Carson. Regardless of whether you support him for president, please tell me for each if this is something that you find very attractive about him, mostly attractive, mostly unattractive, or very unattractive.

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And we're off.

Ben Carson has said that the Affordable Care Act is the worst thing to happen to America since slavery, and 55 percent of Iowans polled think this opinion makes him "very attractive." If you add in the "mostly attractive" results, then 81 percent of the people polled think he's right on the money there.

Ben Carson has said that the Holocaust would have turned out differently had every Jewish person in Europe been armed, and 51 percent of Iowans polled think this opinion makes him "very attractive." If you add in the "mostly attractive" results, then 77 percent of the people polled like what he said.

And the cherry on top is the fact that an aggregate 96 percent of Iowans polled think Ben Carson "approaches issues with common sense."

Theoretically, democracy is a hell of an idea, isn't it? Can we just let the cows vote now?